Latest news with #childexploitation
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Long-haul truck driver from Utah arrested for possessing CSAM, charges say
Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. GRAND COUNTY, Utah () — A long-haul truck driver from Utah has been arrested and charged with allegedly possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and having inappropriate conversations about children. Leo Jacob Stocks, 38, has been charged with four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of assault by a prisoner, and one count of interference with an arresting officer. According to documents, a sergeant with the Grand County Sheriff's Office was assigned the investigation of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTips. These tips were from Kik, a social media and messaging app, and said that the suspect was using the platform to possess and distribute CSAM. West Haven man charged for sending and receiving CSAM through social media, documents say The sergeant obtained search warrants for the Kik account and associated Google and AT&T accounts. A separate investigation by law enforcement in Maryland had located the suspect's phone number and email. Using this information, the suspect was identified as Stocks, who lived in Green River, Utah, and was a long-haul truck driver for a company based out of Illinois. On June 16, 2025, sheriff deputies found that Stocks was traveling on I-70 in Grand County. They performed a traffic stop on him. The investigating sergeant read Stocks his Miranda Rights and then had a conversation about the alleged CSAM connected to him through the investigation. Documents say that Stocks at first avoided the questions, but then confessed that he had CSAM on his phone. He also admitted to having sexual desires for children, but 'denied ever acting on those desires.' Search warrants for the devices were served on Stocks' devices, and four files of 'prepubescent' CSAM were located, one of which was downloaded in the last 48 hours. When the sergeant reviewed messages Stocks sent on Kik, he found that he had 'multiple conversations attempting to arrange meetings with juvenile children.' Former U.S. serviceman charged with possessing child sexual abuse material, documents say Also in those conversations, Stocks allegedly confessed to sexually abusing an infant when he was a juvenile. Messages regarding his desires to engage in sexually abusing young children were found on Kik as well. Documents say that Stocks had been making offers to babysit children in Green River, but had been turned down. 'Based on the conversations had by the suspect, his admittance to having sexual desires to children, his attempts to act on these desires, and his employment allowing him to travel across the country, Leo poses an extreme risk to all communities should he be allowed to be released,' one of the documents reads. Stocks was booked into the Grand County Jail and is currently being held without bail. He has an initial appearance in court on June 23. Report child sexual abuse material to law enforcement by contacting the ICAC Tip Line at (801) 281-1211 or your local law enforcement agency. WATCH: Arturo Gamboa is released from jail, walks out arm in arm with his mother Snapchat files lawsuit against Utah AG over 'threats' to require age verification We Win Injury Law exposes what riders get wrong about crash claims Hogle Zoo's giraffe encounter is wildly worth it Pope Leo 'concerned' about AI's impact on children Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Pensacola man pleads guilty to cyberstalking and sending obscene materials to minor females
PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — A Pensacola man has pleaded guilty to charges of cyberstalking and sending obscene materials to minor girls. Prichard police investigating officer's use of non-issued baseball bat before arrest According court documents, 28-year-old Charles M. Schmaltz used ten or more social media accounts to contact several young girls between the ages of 9 and 15 between 2022 and 2024. The girls and their parents repeatedly asked Schmaltz to stop contacting them, but Schmaltz instead sent sexually explicit content to the girls, including 'extremely graphic' communications about performing sexual acts with the girls and pictures of his genitals, court documents revealed. According to the US Department of Justice, agencies including the FBI, the Escambia County, Fla. Sheriffs Office, and the Dale County Sheriff's Office worked together to investigate, find, and arrest Schmaltz. Schmaltz's sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 18, 2025, at 2 p.m. at the United States Courthouse in Pensacola. According to the DOJ, he could face up to 30 years in prison and lifetime supervision after his release. 'Protecting children from online exploitation and abuse is of paramount importance, and my office will aggressively pursue, prosecute, and seek punishment to the fullest extent of the law for those who prey upon our most innocent, vulnerable populations,' U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin said. 'My message to offenders is clear: if you prey upon our children, you had better pray we don't find you.' Woman dead, husband and child injured in boat crash on Bayou Sara: ALEA The case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to fight child sexual exploitation and abuse. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
National Post
16 hours ago
- National Post
Michael Higgins: The woke ideology that allowed authorities to sit back as children were raped
The horror of what can befall a society in the sway of wokeism's toxic ideology was revealed in England this week, with a report detailing how children as young as 10 were raped on an almost industrial scale by predatory gangs, while authorities did nothing. Article content Social workers, police, judges and politicians were so afraid of being called racist, they allowed this evil abuse of society's most vulnerable to flourish for more than a decade and a half. Article content Article content Article content What those in authority refused to acknowledge was that children — some mentally or physically disabled, some in the care of social services, many from working-class homes, nearly all white — were being serially abused by men, with a disproportionate number of predators being of South Asian origin. Article content Article content The opening paragraph of the report, 'National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse' by Louise Casey, says that, ' 'Group-based child sexual exploitation,' rare though it may be, is one of the most heinous crimes in our society.' Article content But 'group-based child sexual exploitation' is too sanitized a phrase, writes Casey, when what is involved is 'multiple sexual assaults committed against children by multiple men on multiple occasions; beatings and gang rapes. Girls having to have abortions, contracting sexually transmitted infections, having children removed from them at birth.' Article content The reports says that, 'To prevent it we have to understand it,' but 'we have failed in our duty to do that to date.' Article content Article content Evidence from media, police and local inquiries about 'grooming gangs,' operating particularly in northern England, go back almost two decades. Article content Article content Many police forces did not keep data on the ethnicity of the perpetrators, but Casey found there was enough evidence to 'show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation.' Article content A review of local inquiries and prosecutions showed that, 'These cases indicate a wide geographical spread of cases involving Asian/Pakistani perpetrators across the country.' Article content 'More often than not, the official reports do not discuss the perpetrators, let alone their ethnicity or any cultural drivers. There is a palpable discomfort in any discussion of ethnicity in most of them. Where ethnicity is mentioned, it is referred to in euphemisms such as 'the local community,' or it is buried deep in the report and only vaguely referenced in any contents index or executive summary,' reads the Casey report.
Times
a day ago
- Times
Bradford is the grooming ‘hotspot' of the UK, victim warns
Fiona Goddard was just 14 and living at a children's home when she was targeted by a grooming gang based in Bradford. She was plied with drink and drugs, repeatedly raped and 'in effect used as a prostitute' before falling pregnant to one of her abusers, a court heard. Nine Asian men were jailed for committing 22 offences against her in 2019, but six years on she believes predators continue to plague her home town. PA 'It's definitely still going on,' Goddard, now 31, warned this week as she described Bradford as the overlooked hotspot of grooming in the UK. She is among thousands of young people who may have been failed by authorities over the past 20 years, according to campaigners who claim the problem here could dwarf similar scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham. A dossier compiled by a child abuse lawyer and a Bradford-based MP maintains that up to 8,000 children were at risk of sexual exploitation between 1996 and 2025. Baroness Casey of Blackstock, whose audit of grooming cases this week prompted a national inquiry into the issue, said she would be 'surprised' if Bradford was not one of the first areas to be investigated. With the spotlight finally falling on the city and its surrounding suburbs, The Times met survivors, campaigners and residents who fear child sex attackers have become emboldened by the nation's attention focused elsewhere. Speaking as families enjoyed ice creams and water fights in the warm weather on Thursday, Goddard welcomed the new inquiry but stressed that the authorities must not view the issue as purely historical. She revealed that within the last fortnight alone at least two incidents have left local parents seriously concerned for the safety of their children. On June 10, West Yorkshire police arrested a 70-year-old man on allegations of sexual assault after a report that two children were inappropriately touched at a park in Allerton village, three miles from Bradford. Footage of the arrest, seen by The Times, shows the suspect trying to escape by reversing his car down a residential road at high speed as officers chase after him on foot. The man was taken into custody and later bailed with conditions. Five days later, on Sunday evening, officers were again called to a report of a suspicious vehicle in Wibsey village, south of Bradford, after residents claimed teenage girls were being supplied with 'alcohol and balloons' in the back seats. Officers interviewed two men inside the car and searched the vehicle, before issuing them with out-of-court disposals for possession of class C drugs. Another victim of a Bradford-based grooming gang who bravely waived her lifelong right to anonymity is Scarlett West, who is now 20. Despite living in Tameside, about an hour away in Greater Manchester, she was routinely ferried to Bradbury by her abusers before finally breaking free from their influence two years ago. Marlon West, her father, said the abuse is now 'worse than it's ever been' because perpetrators have exploited 'political correctness' to create a culture of silence in the UK. Scarlett, who attended a private school, 'went off the rails' after being physically attacked by a gang of boys at a bus station. Vulnerable, she was befriended by an older white woman who allegedly groomed her and introduced her to a group of predominantly British-Pakistani men. 'Scarlett was being trafficked around the country to a number of places, but Bradford, she was taken there hundreds of times,' her father said. The area 'is on a different level', he added, because it 'has not had the limelight' like other areas and the criminals 'believe they can get away with it'. Both Goddard and West, who do not know each other and suffered abuse a decade apart, said that snooker clubs in the city had been hubs of grooming activity. At least one has been closed down by police over allegations of child sex offences. When The Times visited the site of another club identified this week, it had also shut after going out of business. It is now used as a youth club. Its new owner, who asked not to be identified, said he was saddened but not surprised to learn of the building's history given the area's reputation for grooming. Goddard said she believes the 'dynamics' of grooming operations 'are changing' as the public becomes more vigilant to vehicles loitering on street corners. 'Rather than just pulling over in cars and seeing them on the street, they're [now] getting in touch with vulnerable people on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok,' she said. • Officers at Greater Manchester Police who specialise in child exploitation agreed. Grooming is 'evolving' and has become a 'broader' issue than it was two decades ago, they said, driven by the ease with which predators can now contact vulnerable children on the internet. Many traditional routes used by offenders — through care homes or schools, for example — have been 'closed' by better safeguarding, the force said, but the digital world was 'where the opportunity is'. 'Exploitation is still happening,' Detective Superintendent Alan Clitherow, head of the force's major child sexual exploitation investigations, said. 'It's still happening here, it's still happening nationally. We're constantly having to keep pace with how it's evolving.' But he said the grooming gangs phenomenon does 'not look the same today' because law enforcement is better equipped to tackle it after learning 'a lot of lessons' from various reviews. 'You're therefore not going to have the same level of long-term bespoke offending, but that doesn't mean that it's not happening,' he added. Detective Chief Inspector Dan Hadfield, who leads the force's online child abuse investigation team, said there were still 'definitely people working together in a certain town', but that offenders now often operate across borders thanks to the internet. 'It's not as focused as it once was,' he said. In Greater Manchester, white men are overrepresented in online child abuse cases, accounting for 82 per cent of suspects — a higher proportion than the local white population of 76 per cent. However, Asian men are disproportionately represented in group-based child abuse cases — those involving multiple perpetrators or multiple victims — and make up more than half of such offenders. Robbie Moore, the MP for Keighley and Ilkley who helped to compile the dossier about Bradford, accused the local council of obstructing independent insight into the scale and nature of sexual offending. He said: 'It defies belief that over two decades ago since my predecessor Ann Cryer first bravely exposed the grooming gangs crisis right here in Keighley, the Bradford district has still never had a full independent inquiry.' Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said: 'This is an appalling crime that blights victims' lives. In Bradford we take this extremely seriously, so I welcome the renewed focus on this nationally. 'We work hard with the police to identify historic victims of CSE [child sexual exploitation] to get them justice and provide support. So far this has resulted in 52 perpetrators receiving prison sentences totalling 570 years. 'Over the last ten years we have published over 70 reports, independently authored reviews and data, including ethnicity data, for open scrutiny on this subject. We have nothing to hide.' Chief Superintendent Richard Padwell of Bradford District Police said tackling child sexual exploitation 'remains a top priority'. He added: 'We are taking a proactive approach and have invested significant resources into tackling exploitation and abuse. 'The work we have undertaken has resulted in hundreds of perpetrators now serving lengthy prison sentences totalling thousands of years. Many investigations are still underway, with more suspects set to stand trial between now and 2027.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Bedworth paedophile Joshua Wilson's jail term extended
A man who posed as a young boy to ask a nine-year-old girl to send nude pictures has had his jail term Wilson, 27, of Alice Close, Bedworth, pretended to be a 12-year-old boy when he contacted the girl on her phone, in who pleaded guilty to a series of offences, was initially jailed for four years, after a hearing at Warwick Crown Court on 7 after Solicitor General Lucy Rigby referred his case to the Court of Appeal, saying the jail term was too lenient, Wilson's sentence was increased to five years and 10 months. The court heard Wilson had contacted two children on social media, between May and September requested nude images and sent sexually-explicit images of himself to one of them. Family spotted messages Then in October 2024, following his arrest and while on bail, he contacted the girl, aged nine, on a social media site and asked her to send was reported by the girl's family, after they had spotted the messages on her was found to have numerous indecent images of children and had uploaded some on to an instant messaging service. Welcoming the increased sentence, Rigby said: "Joshua Wilson's crimes were sickening. He sought to befriend and sexually exploit vulnerable children."Wilson had pleaded guilty to attempting to cause a child to look at an image of sexual activity, causing or inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, two counts of engaging in sexual communications with a child and three counts of making an indecent image of children. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
